Long Hollyhocks Poems

With my Uyghur poetry translations I am trying to build awareness of the plight of Uyghur poets who are being sent to Chinese "reeducation" concentration camps.

Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Asylum seekers, will...

Read More

My given name is Hortense, and I am an English Professor,
I love my job and my life, and to do my best I endeavor.

I am popular with my students, as I also am with friends;
And...

Read More

   One bright sunny day, Mrs. Puddles Wuggles took her eight kittens for a walk in

the garden and beyond.  The kittens were named; Glimmer and Tywinkle, Itsy and

Bitsy, Topsy and Turvey, and...

Read More

( Song of Solomon 4: 16 )



We Walked In The Garden At Midnight
We Walked Thru The Garden In Moonlight

Among Azealeas & Verbenas & Blue Jonquils
Sweet Honeysuckle, Yellow Primroses & Daffodils
Among White Phlox & Orchids &...

Read More

She removed the drops of perspiration from her forehead with the back of her garden glove, leaving nature’s makeup in its place, a small streak of brown soil. As I stared at her, she put...

Read More

Tall red and pink-tipped spears reach for the nothing-at-all blue sky, all washed out with sunshine. The tight wrapped buds of the hollyhocks are too high for us to reach, but Imogen can. You and...

Read More

There’s a special place that I now recall
Both secret and safe in a garden wall,
Far my favorite space when I was small
Was that wooden gate in the garden wall.
And there beneath that garden way
One million...

Read More

In my grandpa’s field I stand midst rows of grain
 whose gray-green blades stir softly in the moaning wind.
A night chill permeates my skin.
I look down at my arms and legs and realize
I’m a little...

Read More

This August day is like an unwritten poem
and if I could I’d write it for you.

I would tell you how tiny bits
Of puffy white clouds skitter along the 
Open expanse of the azure sky.
They sail...

Read More

The old lady planted roses near the corner by the driveway
She never planted roses by the door
I remember once she told me, "Bees come out to get the nectar"
And a bee sting can be deadly...

Read More

The threshold waits before you
the garden waits beyond;
what you plant is what you'll reap
when seasons have moved on.

When springtime fades to summer
and summer fades to fall
and winter's white hair slumbers
bringing chills to root and all.

What...

Read More

I stop now and again,
on the inter sanctum that is my porch.
Always trying  to calm my racing brain,
I stop to gaze out into the beyond.

I sit on my old wooden bench,
and watch the summer...

Read More

I remember you in all your faces
   from the photograph of a young girl
   surprised at being looked at, and later,
Sun brown and strong over the garden hoe
   or...

Read More

I Walked in the Woods, on a Moonlit path
As Fireflies gathered around to Dance
And Crickets and a Nightingale Chirped a Tune
As a Distant Wolf, Howls at the Moon

And a Glow-Eyed Owl, Territorially Asked Who-o-o- !
dares...

Read More

Windchimes

In my advancing years
Clarity eludes me now and then.
I sit quietly in the gazebo.
Your book and glasses
not yet removed from your seat.
Drifting into sleep
I awaken suddenly.
with confusion reigning again.

I quietly call your name
The need to...

Read More

10/26/12
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deep into the world of mystery I find my heart buried
Until from tear-filled eyes my mind pours deep water
A sprinkled light so distant somehow comes to view,
But I am stuck in miserable muddle and I...

Read More

Lying on my back,
the warm sun blanketing,
I watched the cloud stacks drift,
breezily blown across the bluest skies,
imagining, dreaming . . .

Dangling from my lips,
sweet honeysuckle straws dripped nectar candy,
delicious extract for flavoring dreams,
visions of the...

Read More

An English country garden 
so evocative of times gone by
recalling all the many plants 
lovingly sown by Granny and I

Majestic Lupins and Hollyhocks 
so tall they almost touched the sky
Lily-of-the-Valley and Forget-me-nots
tiny flowers loved by...

Read More

old tracks
 to
      the water edge
  a
    thatched cottage
a river a harbour a boat

with
    woman&child
a beach a village a park

'neath lilac
  ...

Read More

Status of Super Clematis

So what is the status of my super Clematis?
We hope our Hollyhocks are glad to see us
And what if flowers became a beautiful Rose?
With energy earnestly grows and grows.

Many nice words are...

Read More

So strange this land, old and yet young.
Where is this place of tall green trees,
and grey-haired men in unknown tongue?
they must have traveled summer's breeze.

Adobe brick quonset "chalets"
mud-soaked roadways in all the blocks.
WACs and wives...

Read More

“As I watched the seagulls, I thought, That’s the road to take; find the absolute rhythm and follow it with absolute trust.” ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

RUDIMENTS OF WINGS

O child, your seablown hollyhocks— recall
of Kilmer’s tree. So...

Read More

HALLOWEEN

Frightening things
Bats
Just at twilight
Flying
Darting
Low
O’er the churchyard green
At night
Also frightening

The Baptist Church
ITSELF!
Eerie windows
Barely lit
An organ playing
Halloween music
I hate it!
Always Halloween music

Troutman’s cat
Swishes her tail
Around the bullet tree
The deaf woman calls
Sandy voice
“Tabby!    Tabby!”

The narrow...

Read More

Oh haste, brumal mists, that twilight kisses
          on hollyhocks, meadow-born,
     Sweet tears resurrected on petals neglected,
      ...

Read More

On Grandpa’s farm we rose to summer’s light,
then stayed outside – sometimes till dark of night.

There was a gated big front yard and tree
and hollyhocks, so pretty, growing free.

Behind the house there was a tool...

Read More